Social media companies must urgently stop censoring life-saving drug warnings, the Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) has warned, after a string of takedowns blocked critical alerts from reaching people who need them.
Multiple organisations, including Pill Testing Australia, CanTEST, and New Zealand partner KnowYourStuffNZ, have had posts removed, accounts suspended, and in some cases, entire pages and personal accounts permanently deleted, after automated content moderation systems flagged their public health alerts as promoting drug use.
The AIVL CEO, John Gobeil, said the actions by both Meta and TikTok are reckless and dangerous, with serious implications for people who use drugs as well as medical and health professionals.
"These services rely on social media to tell people where they are, what's in circulation and how to stay safe. If those messages are blocked, people don't know the service exists, and they lose the chance to make safer decisions.
"It is also read by on-site medical teams, paramedics, and emergency departments, so they can prepare. Put simply, Meta is silencing health workers who are simply trying to stop people from overdosing," John Gobeil said.
Pill Testing Australia says it has had content removed across both Instagram and Facebook and been banned from TikTok. CanTEST was previously suspended from Instagram for a week, while KnowYourStuffNZ had its Facebook page repeatedly taken down and its communications lead permanently banned.
The New Zealand-based organisation's ban followed a post warning of a high-risk synthetic cathinone being mis-sold as MDMA, with all appeals either rejected or ignored. Other drug harm reduction organisations in New Zealand have also been affected.
Flagged posts by Meta include straightforward harm reduction advice to prevent accidental overdose, such as warnings about "double-strength" MDMA circulating, and recommendations to reduce dosage if testing isn't available.
In one case, a Pill Testing Australia warning about strong MDMA and nitazenes - a synthetically produced opioid more potent than fentanyl - ahead of Canberra's Spilt Milk festival last December was removed three days prior and a subsequent appeal was rejected.
"This total failure of Meta's automated moderation systems means it's not distinguishing between drug promotion and public health advice and undermining the entire drug checking effort," Gobeil said.
"We know Meta will remedy this if regulators force them, but otherwise won't bother to teach its algorithm how harm reduction saves lives. It's as much a failure of values as it is of content moderation."
AIVL is calling on the eSafety Commissioner to use every available lever to compel both Meta and TikTok to act and restore all accounts and content of member organisations that have been removed or suspended on the basis of drug-related community standards violations.
"Social media companies need to establish a clear, accessible pathway for public health organisations to have content reviewed by human moderators before automated removal," John Gobeil said.
"They should urgently pick up the phone to our members to understand the nature and purpose of their work and end their risky crusade against popular life-saving public health information."
